THE NATIONAL NURSERYMAN 
S5 
soiison was discussed, but it was found impossible to pro¬ 
vide the necessary funds for such expense. 
A budg(d coY('ring the expenses of the Association was 
considered and adopted. 
The scheme of tlie Nurserymen’s Organization for Mar- 
kid Di'velojiment by means of voluntary subscriptions was 
explained to the committee and, while the Committee did 
not feid it ap[)roj)riate at the present time to take any ac¬ 
tion, it expressed an approval of the efforts being made 
by such organization. 
The Committee on Hail Insurance submitted a report as 
to the offer of the American Mutual Cyclone and Hail In¬ 
surance Company, of Muncie, Ind., in the matter of pro¬ 
tection from bail. It was voted not to accept the report 
of the Hail Committee not to accept the offer. 
In the matter of the appointment of a Chairman of the 
Legislative Committee, Mr. William Pitkin having re¬ 
signed such position, in as much as Mr. Pitkin was will¬ 
ing to act as Vice-Chairman and in charge of the opposi¬ 
tion to the exclusion of foreign grown nursery stocks, and 
as counsel had consented to take care of the other work, 
it was decided not to appoint a Chairman until after the 
next annual convention of the Association. 
The discussion of the plan of publication of a directory 
of those entitled to receive wholesale prices was con¬ 
sidered, and action deferred. 
Several other matters were also discussed at the meet¬ 
ing. 
CONSERVATION 
E. N. Reasoner, of the Royal Palm Nurseries, Oneco, 
Florida, calls attention to the very considerable economic 
waste continually going on in the nursery trade. He 
refers to the regular sending of northern nursery trade 
lists to Florida firms. Most of these lists are for nothing 
hut hardy stock that it is not possible to use in Florida 
and other sub-tropical localities. Northern fruits cannot 
successfully he grow n in the land of bananas and oranges 
any more than the latter can be grown up north. 
There is no question but that a great saving could be 
made by carefully going over the mailing lists, keeping 
this fact in mind, we are apt to overlook the fact that the 
United States is an extremely large country, having a 
very varied climate. 
TUEE PLANTING DURING THE CIVIL WAR 
Charles A. Green 
During the Civil War in this country the southern 
armies were expected by many people to overrun the 
north, therefore there w as a cessation of tree planting or 
of the planting of orchards of apples, peaches, plums and 
cherries, which caused distress among nurserymen. At 
the close of the w^ar or soon after there w as great scar¬ 
city of nursery products and fruit trees sold readily at 
$1.00 each. One veteran nurseryman tells me that he sold 
many apple trees at one thousand dollars per thousand 
trees, wdiich could be purchased now at $350 per 1000. 
Tacoma, Washington, January 4, 1917. 
Editor National Nurseryman, Flourtown, Pa. 
Dear Sir;— 
We have just received copy of your nurseiy magazine, 
the first one that we have seen. We are very much inter¬ 
ested in the promotion and publicity campaign for nur¬ 
serymen, as we believe that the nurserymen have greater 
opportunities and make less use of them than any other 
business that we know of. We have been endeavoring to 
do some individual promotion work here in our own city, 
with a view of awakening the Tacoma people to the as¬ 
sets which they possess in the way of climate and scenery, 
and of making Tacoma one of the great tourist centers in 
the world. This would include of course the beautifying 
of the city—making the city cleaner, more sightly and bet¬ 
ter in every way. We have made some progress and can 
see where almost unlimited possibilities crop out. It 
makes us distressed to find that the other nurseiymen can 
not also see these opportunities, or at least make little or 
no effort to utilize these great opportunities. In writing 
to some of the leading nursery finns and seed houses in 
this section we receive such replies as “We know it ought 
to be done, but we can’t see how to go about it.” And 
when we tell them about what we have done they ask 
“Has it paid?” It hasn’t paid us because we have not as 
yet been able to carry our ideas out in full, but the more 
we work on the plan the more convinced we are that it is 
the only practical solution of the problem of how to 
create a demand and market for our nursery stock. We 
are also doing this single-handed whereas if we had the 
co-operation and support of the nurserymen’s associations 
our task would be much easier. Our Pacific Coast Nur¬ 
serymen’s Association appointed a publicity committee at 
its meeting last Jmie and they promised to keep us advised 
of what progress they made, and as we have not heard 
anything from them it looks as though no progress has 
been made up to this time. However, we have faith that 
ultimately we will develop some “Captains of Industry” 
in the nursery as well as other lines of business, and 
meanwhile all we can do is to do the best we can. It is 
discouraging to say the least to see many of the nursery¬ 
men going into bankruptcy while the rest of us are hang¬ 
ing on the ragged edge while all around us are unlimited 
opportunities only waiting to be utilized to bring pros¬ 
perity to the nursery business. 
There is no business that can secure the support of the 
newspapers, the commercial organizations, the school and 
l)ark boards, the school children, women’s clubs, parent- 
teachers’ associations and other organizations that the 
nursery business can, and in face of all this the nursery¬ 
men are struggling along in the same old rut making little 
or no effort to change their methods—methods which 
they surely by this time must see will have to be aban¬ 
doned or else the nursery business will prove a failure 
for the great majority of the nurserymen. 
Hoping that the new year will bring about a change 
for the better, we remain, 
Yours very truly, 
Mitchell Nursery Company, 
M. G. Mitchell, Sec’y. 
